Medieval Joke Poetry: The Cantigas d’Escarnho e de Mal Dizer (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature)

Medieval Joke Poetry examines the intersection of jokes, laughter, insults, and poetry in a collection of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century medieval Iberian songs known as the Cantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer. Written in Galician-Portuguese, these 'songs of mockery and insult' make up a heterogeneous corpus whose witticisms are by turns funny and vicious, crudely obscene and exquisitely sophisticated, playful and deadly serious. Liu's readings disentangle the complex verbal strategies of these joke-poems in order to reveal the latent cultural tensions that underlie their humor. Wordplay, double meanings, and deliberate combinations of incongruous ideas are intended to elicit laughter, even as they gesture toward the rupture of accepted cultural categories in such manifestly hybrid paradoxes as an "Albardan cavaleiro" (noble buffoon), a "mouro cruzado" (Crusader Moor), or a male "dona salvage" (wild woman). Liu shows how these jokes operate in such varied cultural contexts as the arts of augury and divination, pilgrimage, prostitution, interfaith sexuality, and medical malpractice.

Literature & Fiction

Liu, Benjamin

History & Criticism

Harvard University Department of Comparative Literature

The paradox of Andy Warhol, who is at once one of the most visible and the most elusive figures of our time, is heightened by this collection of twenty interviews with the artist's closest friends and colleagues. Through their words a more complete picture emerges of the man behind the mirror. Their recollections form an ever entertaining, often fascinating oral history of his career. Complementing the text are more than fifty works from private collections and the Warhol archives, most of which have never been published before. Interviews in the original Interview mode--direct and unedited--evoke the serendipity and laissez-faire creativity of the Factory, where Warhol reigned without ruling. Included are the stories of Vito Giallo, the studio assistant turned antiques dealer whose shop was a regular stop on Warhol's shopping itinerary; of Baby Jane Holzer, one of the biggest superstars of Warhol's underground films; of Bob Colacello and Marc Balet, former editor and art director at Interview; and of Billy Name, who literally lived at the silver-coated Factory during the turbulent sixties. Photographs by Billy Name, Paige Powell, and other friends create a clearer, more intimate picture of the artist and all that swirled around him.

Unseen Warhol

O'CONNOR, John

Biographies & Memoirs

Rizzoli

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